


Carry the Flag

by infiniteviking



Category: Tron (1982), Tron (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-15 20:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteviking/pseuds/infiniteviking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alan poses for his action figure. He is not amused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry the Flag

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet: was inspired by the [amazingly amazing oldskool action figures of win](http://images.plurk.com/2b79c6d20e8d07300e96e9442c999c06.jpg) that are on Sam Flynn's desk at the beginning of _Legacy_. I couldn't figure out what the Flynn one was supposed to be doing, until someone pointed out that it was his rezzing-in pose from his first moments in the ENCOM system. And then I thought "..why is there an action figure of _that_?"

“Okay. So you hold up your hands....”

Alan permitted only a moment or two of being posed like a space-age mannequin before glaring at Flynn and lowering his arms. “This is ridiculous.”

“It’s the way the programs do this.” It was maddening how _certain_ Flynn was — as if all he had to do was explain that he was right and everyone else would just fall in line. “They’re very serious about their Users. C’mon, hold up the disc again. And wipe that look off your face. You’re supposed to look reverent, not skeeved.”

“I am skeeved. This? Is skeevy.”

“You have no appreciation for drama.”

Brushing him aside, Alan flopped down on the nearest chair, wishing he were anywhere else. His office, his home, even Flynn’s loft with its way-too-comfortable couch and the arcade music making the floor shake.

“You let Roy choose his _own_ pose,” he said accusingly. Roy’s action figure had come out pretty nice at that: a plucky, determined little fighter ready to throw his disc. And while Alan had expected Flynn’s figure to end up in some outlandishly heroic pose with that absurd cesta from the jai-alai level, Flynn had instead gone for a surprisingly understated beam-me-down stance, saying it was important not to lose sight of the moment of transition. Sometimes — make that all the time — Alan really didn’t understand him.

“Well, Ram’s his character.” Flynn shrugged, propping a hip on the desk and swinging the camera on its safety strap. “Figures he’d know him best.”

“And you’re still doing this to me? Flynn, you make no sense.” Alan plucked irritably at the arm of his jumpsuit and mentally cursed whoever had invented spandex. “And you’re never going to get Lora to stand still in one of those. Especially not ‘looking up adoringly at her hero’. Flynn, have you _met_ her?”

An infuriatingly smug smirk crept over Flynn’s face. “Actually… we did that yesterday.”

“Why you tin-plated — _give me that camera_ —”

“No way, man!” Flynn dodged behind the desk, the camera held way out of reach. “Hey, for the record, she was fine with it. That adoration is all for you. You can ask her later — or don’t you trust her?”

Alan halted, derailed. One never knew, with Flynn, when he was being serious. He’d say the most off-the-wall things and then follow them up with this _look_ , a calculating feline look completely at odds with what one had thought was happening. It was completely unfair.

“Yeah,” Alan growled, trying to shake off the unsettling off-kilter feeling that had nothing to do with the spandex and everything to do with Flynn being Flynn. “Yeah, actually, I do.”

Flynn cocked his head. Then his face cleared, as though the question had been about the game or the weather, and he smiled a glad smile and reached over to clap Alan on the back. “Good. That’s good. Now let’s get this done so you can get back to being stuffy old Bradley again.”

Alan snorted, stayed where he was a moment longer just to make it clear he was only moving because he felt like it, and then sidestepped back into the middle of the room. “I get those pictures when you’re done.”

“Nope,” said Flynn breezily. “Lora gets ‘em. If you ask her nicely, she’ll probably share. Now just hold the disc and look up, okay? Like there was something up there that could give you patience.”

Alan did.

Patience. It was a mystery, a thing that people like Lora could do; he’d thought he had no space for it, but lately it had become a matter of survival. And maybe he was learning. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, to be someone who could stand here holding a frisbee over his head as if it meant something important, just because the man beside him had a vision.

“Attaboy, Tron. The kids’re gonna love you.”

The camera flashed, and Alan almost smiled.  
___


End file.
